Gujarat Titans managed to achieve a narrow victory against Punjab Kings, bringing them level on points with Rajasthan Royals and Lucknow Super Giants at the top of the table. The reigning champions displayed a strong performance with the ball, limiting the hosts to a below-par score of 153/8. Although the Titans appeared to be on course to meet the target for most of the second innings, they faced some last-minute jitters, nearly succumbing to an upset. In the end, the Titans won with only one ball and six wickets remaining, much to the disappointment of Virender Sehwag, the former Indian opener.
Despite the fact that Shubman Gill scored 67 runs off 49 deliveries, with the highest individual score in the match, Sehwag criticized his lack of intent at the top of the order in the final few overs. Sehwag noted that it took Gill 18 balls to score the last 15 runs required for his half-century before he immediately accelerated the scoring rate after reaching the milestone, scoring 17 runs off the next nine deliveries.
“If even that had not happened, then GT would have been chasing maybe 17 instead of 7 in the last over,” Sehwag commented on Cricbuzz.
When Gill was dismissed on the second ball of the last over with the team still requiring six runs off the final four deliveries, the Titans found themselves in a difficult position. Ultimately, a boundary by Rahul Tewatia saved the visitors the embarrassment of defeat. Sehwag argued that this situation could have been avoided if Gill had taken the initiative to finish off proceedings earlier.
“You can’t think let me score a fifty and we will anyway win the match. This is cricket. The moment you think about your own performance (instead of the team), you will get a tight slap from cricket. You can’t think like that. If he had shown the same intent and played at a strike rate of close to 200 when he was nearing fifty, then he could have reached his milestone a lot earlier and saved more deliveries for his team,” Sehwag added.
In the ongoing season, Gill has scored 183 runs at an average of 45.75 and a strike rate of 141.86, placing him fifth in the race for the Orange Cap.
